I suppose I should have assumed that my participation in an interview regarding this blog series would lead to my having to write yet another interlude post, but I guess I hoped that speaking my truth for 58 minutes would speak for itself…so to…speak. (lol)
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it didn’t go unnoticed/ignored for long.
Of course, it seems as if the only reason my interview came under fire in the first place – at least to the extent that it has – is because Alec Peters was recently accused of allegedly buying YouTube views for his channels.
I’m including some screenshots that were shared as possible proof of this happening, because I feel it’s important to note that these accusations certainly weren’t baseless – YouTube channels that do not produce viral-level new content do not usually get tens or hundreds of thousands of views in a day, period; also, YouTube often negates views for a variety of reasons, but very rarely if ever do they negate tens of thousands, or HUNDREDS of thousands, of views at a time…unless those views were from bots, or possibly from the purchase of real views from a questionable provider – particularly if those views happen in large chunks that do not mesh with a channel’s usual average daily/weekly views.
Now, YouTube will also remove views that come from the same user watching something multiple times and views that are under 30 seconds long. Also, if a user changes a video from public to unlisted or private (or deletes it entirely), that video’s views will be removed from the channel’s stats unless/until it is made public again. Therefore I leave it up to you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions regarding the stats pictured below and what they might mean:
Data like this – which comes from a website called SocialBlade – was shared in Axamonitor at least as early as March 13th. To be fair, there were certainly some other things going on around the same time (i.e., a new filing in the case between Alec Peters and Paul Jenkins, as well as accusations of Alec possibly participating in GoFundMe skimming), but it makes the most sense that it was the calling out of those allegedly purchased YouTube views that led to the following post being made in the “””Real Truth About Axanar””” Facebook group on March 17th (screenshot taken from an Axamonitor post made that same day):
First, I have to be very clear that I really don’t care about the number of YouTube views that this interview has received. Apparently that’s a point of contention, but I have participated in a LOT of webcasts/video interviews, and let’s just say that if I truly cared about the number of views they got, I would have stopped bothering with them a LONG time ago.
For posterity’s sake, here is the interview in question:
Regardless of WHY Jon Tessler suddenly started harping on a week-and-a-half-old interview (by the way, see my Interlude 2 post for more on this particular person), the most absurd thing to come out of my interview being brought to the forefront is that in the 58 minutes I spent talking with Matt of TrekZone, the 3-ish minutes that I spent talking about Crysstal Hubbard’s accusation regarding a man named Curtis Short allegedly assaulting her has become a sort of focal point – and Crysstal Hubbard lied about what I said regarding that situation.
I’ll give her this – there are people in the Axamonitor Facebook group who I would moderate out of existence, if I could. In fact, I said that in my interview – not that she would take note of that, and not that anyone from their camp would understand that I do NOT see every single shitty comment or have the time to take care of all of them on my own – because unlike them, I do not actually spend every moment of my [very limited] free time watching this bullshit.
That said, lying about what someone said in a publicly available interview – and then being called out for your lies and rather than retracting them, giving the reasoning “this might be what you say publicly but *I* believe you feel differently”…OOF.
I honestly can’t believe this is something I even have to state, because one would think it’s obvious…but apparently there are some people who actually might not understand that the only person who looks bad when YOU lie about someone, is YOU.
Of course, I do understand that people are often going to assume whatever they want to assume – but a person’s assumptions don’t change the truth. To be more specific, Crysstal’s assumptions about how SHE believes I think or feel are (a) her own assumptions, (b) do not change how I actually think or feel, and (c) obviously also do not change the fact that the only argument I have EVER made is that my partner did not do what she said he did…and again, LYING about what I ACTUALLY said doesn’t make ME look bad ::shrug::
Funny enough, while the main reason I haven’t yet posted part 6 of this series is because I’ve been SUPER busy (I do, after all, have a day job and a family, take Taekwondo classes 2-3 times a week, run a convention that is happening in just over a month, host regular webcasts/podcasts, etc.), I’ve also put it off because I was having a difficult time coming up with a proper segue from all of the online bullshit that happened in the summer of 2021 to an incident that happened at Dragon Con 2021…an incident that I knew nothing about until after the fact yet was somehow still accused of participating in. But as further recent comments in the “””Real Truth About Axanar”””” Facebook group have brought that up as well, I think this segue will be quite a bit easier than I originally expected.
For now, until I have time to go into detail regarding THAT situation and how, despite my complete lack of involvement in it, there have been some over-the-top accusations levied against me surrounding what happened, I leave you with this reminder: Both Dean and I have Alec Peters, Crysstal Hubbard, Jon Tessler, and a few others from the Axanar camp blocked on Facebook.
It’s more difficult to block all of them on other social media platforms (i.e. Twitter and Instagram), but as I can, I do. I recognize that because my other social media accounts are public, there are still ways for the people I block to view them – which yes, they seem to be doing on a daily (or at least near-daily) basis, but hey, that’s on them. And really, the lack of self awareness regarding the fact that these people have so much free time on their hands, and feel the NEED, to follow every word that comes out of my mouth/every single thing I post, particularly on Facebook and Twitter (even things that have nothing to do with them) – and whine about so much of it, to boot (which we tend to learn about from others, usually when it gets shared in Axamonitor) – is just sad.
But as sad as that is, it’s also extremely problematic – though not as problematic as people insisting that I was involved in some sort of [non-existent, mind you] conspiracy to commit a crime [that did not in fact happen]. So stay tuned for part 6, I guess ::sigh::
Previous Installments:
Part 1: I’m Not a Star Trek Fan
Interlude: Proving My Point
Part 2: I’m Not an “Axanar Hater”
Part 3: I’m Not Perfect
Interlude 2: Too Little, Too Late?
Part 4: I’m Not Required to Ignore Attacks Against Me
Part 5: I’m Going to Protect My Family
